Class Notes, Fall 2026

2020s

Nathan Chaplin (26PhD) is a history faculty member on the tenure track at Eastern Iowa Community College in Muscatine, Iowa.

Molly Davis (24BA), a former Hawkeye women’s basketball letter winner, is an assistant women’s basketball coach with Eastern Kentucky University in Richmond.

Rupsa Dey (25MFA), an author, is named on the 2026 Commonwealth Short Story Prize Shortlist with “Fighting Elsewhere.”

Josie Durr (21BA), a former Hawkeye women’s soccer letter winner, is director of operations with the Hawkeye women’s soccer team.

Erin Gray (25BA) is an associate literary agent with The Kepner Agency.

Hajar Hussaini (21MFA), author of Disbound: Poems and an assistant teaching professor of English at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York, is a recipient of the 2026 Whiting Award in poetry.

Esther Ifesinachi Okonkwo (20MFA) has been named to the Swansea University Dylan Thomas Prize longlist for her novel The Tiny Things Are Heavier.

2010s

Eva Adderley (13BFA), a playwright, teacher, and artist based in Minneapolis, is the author of Raised.

Morgan Brittain (16BA, 20MA), a PhD candidate in American studies at the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, is one of seven emerging scholars awarded the Henry Luce Foundation and American Council of Learned Societies’ Dissertation Fellowship in American Art.

Laura Smith Capp (10PhD, 13MFA) is the owner and operator of Postscript, a boutique and coffee shop in Ashland, Nebraska, which offers workshops in skills such as calligraphy, bookbinding, and painting.

Alexander Crider (13BS) is an assistant professor of pediatrics at the Stritch School of Medicine at Loyola University Chicago.

Leah DeGrazia (14BA) is an associate at the Maslon law firm in Minneapolis.

Paige Wallace Jaeger (12BBA, 14MHA), chief operating officer at ChildServe in Des Moines, is a Des Moines Business Record 40 Under 40 honoree for 2026.

Jake Kadel (15BS), a women’s wrestling assistant coach at Iowa State and former Hawkeye men’s wrestler, is the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics Coach of the Year for his achievements coaching women’s wrestling at William Penn University in Oskaloosa, Iowa.

Paige Mundy-Young Moore (10MHA), Ronald McDonald House Charities of Central Iowa CEO, is a Des Moines Business Record 40 under 40 honoree for 2026.

2000s

Hayk Arsenyan (09DMA), a professor of music at New York University, director at the Armenian General Benevolent Union, pianist, and composer, recently released the album Stratum in collaboration with bassist Matt Hare (03DMA) and recording, mixing, and mastering engineer Loren Stata (05MA).

Ryan Evans (09BA), former Hawkeye men’s swimming letter winner, is head swim and dive coach at Illinois State University in Normal, Illinois.

Emily Reagh Harris (03JD) is a special counsel with the Dentons Davis Brown law firm in Des Moines.

Bret Anthony Johnston (02MFA), director of the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas at Austin, is author of the short story collection Encounters with Unexpected Animals.

Rod Lehnertz (02MBA), senior vice president for finance and operations at the UI and university architect, also serves as the new public address announcer for Iowa home football games at Kinnick Stadium.

Shelly Buster Maharry (01BA), president and CEO of the Community Foundation of Johnson County in Iowa, has been named one of the Corridor Business Journal’s 2026 Women of Influence.

Vivek Neelakantan (08MA), a medical historian in India, is author of a new academic monograph, The Emergence of International Health Policy in Southeast Asia, India, and Sri Lanka.

Michael Roston (01BA) is deputy editor on Express at The New York Times.

Gerald Sim (07PhD), a professor of film and media studies at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, is author of Screening Big Data: Films That Shape Our Algorithmic Literacy.

Audra Smith (03BS) is a podiatrist in the Division of Vascular Surgery at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health.

Paige Towers (08BA) is author of What They Stole: A Familicide Rooted in Intercountry Adoption, which explores an Iowa City case.

Brian Wolf (02R, 06MS) is chair and department executive officer of the UI Health Care Department of Orthopedics and Rehabilitation.

1990s

Sasha Boros (96BA, 99JD), former Hawkeye women’s tennis letter winner and current Hawkeye head coach, is the winningest coach in Iowa tennis history.

Traevena Potter Byrd (94BA, 97JD) is the vice president and general counsel at George Washington University in Washington, D.C.

Shawn Hsiang-Yin Chen (96MA, 98PharmD) is associate dean at the Taipei Medical University College of Pharmacy in Taiwan.

Daniel J. DeRoos (98BA), an award-winning journalist in Cleveland, has been inducted into the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Central Great Lakes Silver Circle.

Andrea “Ande” Bennett Kolp (95BM) is CEO of The Arc Maryland, a nonprofit organization that supports children and adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

Marc Kolp (98BA) is director of the Center for Leadership and Innovation at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

Rohini Kolhekar Kuner (95PhD), director of the Institute of Pharmacology at Heidelberg University’s Faculty of Medicine in Germany, has been awarded the 2026 Jung Prize for Medicine for her pain research.

Tangela Smith (98BS), a former Hawkeye women’s basketball letter winner and UI Athletic Hall of Fame inductee, is an assistant coach for the Phoenix Mercury in the WNBA.

Jaci-Marie Nitschke Thomson (97BM) has been appointed deputy director of the Interagency Support Division at the California Department of General Services.

Brian A. White (99BA, 02JD) is the vice president and general council for Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.

1980s

Steve Belay (80BA, 83JD) is executive director of the Iowa Center for Children’s Justice in Des Moines.

Raymond L. M. Bianchi (89BA) is the senior vice president of INFORMA Agriculture in Boone, Iowa.

Daniel R. Campion (89PhD) is author of Star Anchors, his fourth poetry book.

Scott E. Douglas (86BBA) is chief social officer for Ramblin’ Man RV Tours in Pahrump, Nevada.

Kevin Dresser (88BGS), a former Hawkeye men’s wrestling letter winner, is director of men’s and women’s wrestling at Iowa State.

Gerald Fleshner (80BSPh), owner and pharmacist at Lincoln Highway Pharmacy in Carroll, Iowa, recently received the Iowa Pharmacy Association’s Bowl of Hygeia, which recognizes a pharmacist with sustained community commitment.

Tim Sheedy (82MA), a former pastor at parishes within the Diocese of Davenport, celebrated the 50th anniversary of his priestly ordination.

Ed Tormey (86BA, 90JD, 90MA), an environmental services division administrator, recently retired from the Iowa Department of Natural Resources after 22 years of service.

1970s

Richard Cherwitz (74BA, 75MA, 78PhD), a communication studies professor emeritus at the University of Texas at Austin, received the National Debate Tournament’s 2026 Laurence H. Tribe Distinguished Alumni Award.

J. Doug Davis (73BS), a former Hawkeye men’s wrestling letter winner, recently celebrated 50 years of service with Northwestern Mutual as a senior financial advisor.

Randy R. Evans (72BA), president and chief executive of the Iowa Freedom of Information Council, has been inducted into the UI School of Journalism and Mass Communication Hall of Fame.

Peter W. Hansen (79BGS, 82JD), a lawyer with Hansen Law Offices in Burlington, Iowa, has been included in the 2026 Lawdragon 500 Leading Global Bankruptcy and Restructuring Lawyers guide.

Sandra Larew Kemp (77BA, 97MA) is a Healing Touch practitioner at Acupuncture of Iowa in Iowa City.

Robert A. Logan (77PhD), a former professor and dean at the University of Missouri and senior staff member at the U.S. National Library of Medicine, has been inducted into the UI School of Journalism and Mass Communication Hall of Fame.

James Roelofs (70MD, 76R), a retired radiologist, is author of Buddy: Overcoming Cerebral Palsy, Abandonment, and Poverty.

Sandra Goldberg Wendel (71BA), a nonfiction book editor, is author of Cover to Cover: What First-Time Authors Need to Know About Editing.

faculty & friends

Sharyl Grim, who recently retired after serving as secretary for the UI Reserve Officers’ Training Corps for 36 years, received a Meritorious Public Service Medal.

Jo Hendrickson, founding UI REACH program director and professor emeritus in the UI College of Education, completed an 11-day climb up the Himalayas in Nepal.

Bob Jeter, the late former Hawkeye football letter winner who broke two Rose Bowl records in 1959, has been inducted into the South Carolina Football Hall of Fame.

Nick Yablon, a UI history professor, is author of From the Skyscraper to the Wildflower: C.G. Hine’s 1905 Photographic Survey of Broadway.